sink height vs. my height…
at my old apartment, my sink reaches ~ a couple of inches short of my hips. so i can easily lean over the sink.
at my new apartment, the sink height is so much higher!! it makes me feel like a little kid again. too short to reach over the sink so i have to basically climb all up onto the sink just to get close enough to the mirror to pop in my contacts.
bah!!!
MSN has an article of a lady, Denise Hazlick as she prepared and raced in a 26 mile marathon. They have her “diary” where she wrote about her experience. I thought it was a pretty interesting article, very encouraging for a lazy bum such as myself. Her “diary” entry about the race- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7680306/
what i find funny is the readers’ review of her accomplishment (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7820462/)
for the most part, people seem to be encouraging and congratulating her on her accomplishment. but a few people seemed awfully harsh! they’re probably serious runners or perhaps people who regularly exercise or something. and sure maybe finishing a marathon is no big deal for them… but dude! comments like:
Eating bacon and hash browns, walking, going to the bathroom, and popping pills. Now that’s what I call a real running experience. My only hope is that people don’t confuse what you are doing with actual running.
After having read your article, and following your story from time to time, I am concerned by the example you are setting. There seems to be a real lack of respect for the distance, and events your are participating in. Clearly you lack the training and experience for these events. The evidence of this are your physical injuries, lack of preperation, and woefull time. Your article highlights so many mistakes that could easily have been avoided had you taken the time to be fully prepared. I blame your ‘training partner’ for this as well.
I would not be so quick to pat yourself on the back for having to walk a third of the race. I’m wondering if you even ran at least 20 miles in preperation for the race (which you should have done for your training according to any number of marathon training plans).
The example you seem to set is ‘anyone can do it’… seemingly on a whim. This show a great deal of naivete, and is a very real way to injure yourself. And sadly, by extension, you may be contributing to another’s injury; those foolish enough to follow your path. I have been in training and have completed multiple runs, triathlons and cycling events. I have a 3 year goal for an Ironman. When I compete, I actually compete and respect the distances. There are so many distances and race formats available, by leaping to the Ironman first is completely unrealistic. I am convince you will not finish, at least not withing standard time restrictions, and very well my injure yourself. This point doesn’t concern me as much as the poor example that you set. Namely poor preperation.
ouch!! those runners shouldn’t worry that she’s creating a false impression on how easy it is to run a marathon. at least for me… after reading this article, i don’t think there’s any question about the effort of training and preparation needed to run a marathon. i’m definitely (haha, not that i ever considered it anyways) never going to go and sign up for one randomly without training. considering what percentage of america is obese and unable to even run a mile (oh me! me! me!), i think even walking 26 miles would be an accomplishment! 
i like the final reader’s comment about the grammar of her article though (“jeff and i”… “jeff and myself”… “jeff and me”) 
seems like something mariam would do (btw, preperation… isn’t it preparation? or is this some canadian spelling, like colour eh? )
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Currently Reading 50 Jobs Worse Than Yours By Justin Racz see related |
one of the jobs listed in this book was “little boy hand model.” hahahah, i immediately thought of chubacca and ren-yi. haha, the person interviewed for that job actually was a lady who has small hands that look like little boys. chubacca and ren-yi have small hands, but whether they look enough like little boy hands, i am not too sure
i got a hug to start off the morning
the little girl i was “tutoring” this morning is so cute! do 5th graders like to be called cute still?
so the bell rang to start their day of classes so we finished up with our review of science terms i did not know. (what the heck is a monera? or a protista? it sounds so familiar… yet so foreign. i want to say it’s something to do with plants and cells or crap like that) so i wished her a good day at school and then she tapped me on the shoulder and as i turned slightly to face her to see what was up, she gave me a hug
too cute. little kids are awesome
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You scored as Doctor. YOUR A DOCTOR!
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What kinda job r u meant to be..?
created with QuizFarm.com
…what kinda job r u meant to be? does the title even make any sense? “your a doctor?” haha, i think the creator of this quiz was a fob and the results don’t seem too accurate!
The 100 Best High Schools in America
what is the point in ranking “america’s best high schools?” i don’t like this trend towards ranking everything- undergrad, grad programs, med schools, law schools, etc etc. but now they’re ranking high schools?! (i know washingtonpost had the rankings last year, but it seemed to just be local… this year, it seems newsweek has picked up their ranking system and made it the front of their latest issue) it seems pointless to rank high schools nationally. i understand how most parents would want to know the reputation of the neighborhood schools before purchasing a house, but national rankings? what’s the point? are people going to specifically move to an area to go to the #1 school if it’s in an area like say… nebraska? i think the location of parents’ jobs would still determine where the family would end up. so why bother comparing all the high school’s in the nation?
i actually think the judging criteria for ranking the schools (taking the number of AP or IB tests taken by all students at a school in divided by the number of graduating seniors) could lead to crappier education. i believe my high school (ranked #17 on the list) has taken this AP exam thing a bit too far. (of course, i graduated 5 years ago… so perhaps they’ve improved) my high school began to place a heavy emphasis on taking APs my senior year. i think teachers were encouraged to let any student take any APs they wanted to because really, who wants to discourage kids from learning if they’re willing to put the effort right? i guess it’d be ok to encourage kids to take the AP classes because they’ll theoretically learn more sitting in the class. but the judging criteria for the schools is based on the number of students taking the actual exams. i can easily see a school encouraging students to take the AP exams in an effort to boost their ranking. in a few of my classes, i felt pressured into taking the AP test (in fact, i vaguely remember in one of them the teacher said anyone who didn’t would have to do an extra project/test or something to make up).
well… being the great senior slacker that i was, i was not ready for ANY of my AP tests. but being the idiot that i was, i still signed up for 4 out of 5 of them (more on why i dropped one later). this resulted in me sleeping completely through the multiple choice section of Euro History (hey, if u’re gonna fail… why waste time? i was saving up my brain for the essay portion), breezing through the calc BC test with answers like “woohoo!” (yes… for math problems) and muddling my way through the other 2. what was the point?
i’m not trying to blame my teachers for my bad performance on the AP exams, that was entirely my fault. and they did translate into a few (heavy emphasis on few) credits when i went to college, so not all was lost. in the end, the responsibility for determining whether i was prepared for the tests was entirely on me (and in hindsight, i of course shouldn’t have bothered to sign up for these exams!). but i was always encouraged to sign up for all the APs… even in classes that i was taking pass/fail (AND nearly failing) i think it would’ve been a touchy subject had one of my teacher’s approached me about not taking the AP exam… but i think i also would’ve appreciated it since they would’ve been trying to save me money, or giving me a kick in the butt to study harder. they were my teachers and the “experts” in preparing for these exams and when they gave blanket statements telling us we were all ready for the AP exams and encouraging us to sign up for them, you tend to listen to them (and hope that a bit of last minute cramming will catch u up for a year’s worth of slacking off )
finally… the reason why i ended up signing up for 4, and not all 5 of my APs senior year. my last AP class was AP english. This is what my class did throughout the semester- perform skits of scenes from hamlet, write poems about classmates (samples from the poems- “vicky, vicky, she’s so icky,” “this is crystal, her name only rhymes with pistol”…), and draw pictures of the characters from the canterbury tales. does that seem like preparation for the APs or middle school english class? i think half my class didn’t bother to take the AP. they need to have better teachers!
i don’t think counting the number of AP exams is a good way to rank high schools. you could end up having a bunch of idiots, such as myself, signing up to take AP tests they are not ready for (whether that is because the student slacked off… or because the teacher didn’t prepare them well enough).
actually, i don’t think it’s a good thing to be ranking high schools to begin with!
so… a couple of weeks ago at my cousin’s wedding, an ackward ACKWARD moment occurred on the dance floor.
i had been dancing, but decided to sit down after awhile because i was tired (was sharing a hotel room with my sister and dad… he snores like no other! and i spent most of the night afraid to kick my sister in the stomach) well, my parents called me over to dance with them. ook… fine. my mom rarely dances so it was cool seeing her on the dance floor. and then suddenly…
random lady- “oh meet ___ [missed his name]. he can teach you how to dance!!” … pouty face guy is ackwardly pushed onto the dance floor towards me. uh… yea, so i can’t really dance either… but at least i sway… the guy kinda just stood in place and reaaally looked like he didn’t want to be there, i felt so bad. so i stuck around and danced… with my dad
apparently later on that night, that random lady was talking to my mom and asking about my sister and i. she gets around to asking how old we were. my mom was like oh, leslie is turning 26 and crystal is 23. “wha!? they look so young!! ____ is only 17!!” uhh yea…
on another note: this weekend, my family took my grandparents and cousin to presidents park in williamsburg to look at giant presidential heads… when we were buying the tickets, my cousin (who’s 24? 25?) and i passed for 17 and younger and got discounted tickets. i know my sister and my cousin look young… but me?!?! i think i look my age!
i ran a red light yesterday. not even close. 
it was in VA, where someone told me they don’t have red light cameras (but i thought i saw one over the intersection…) let’s see if i get a red light ticket. it would just be icing on the cake if i got one. 
people have told me you’ll know when you’ve gotten caught because you’ll see the flash. but is it really that bright? i didn’t see any flash, but it was also in the middle of a sunny day?
here’s hoping
let me know if you want to! i’ve always wanted to try!
i thought i was rid of yearly movings after graduating from college. naaaah! another year, another move…
i will miss my room at harbor park (i highly recommend it ) it was nicely sized (bigger than my room at home) with plenty of windows, nice closet, and well placed door (there’s nothing like ruining a perfectly nice room with an annoyingly placed door!) plus, it was a really good deal splitting rent 3 ways. harbor park was a great first renting experience (i’ve heard of people getting somewhat ghetto management/landlords their first time). they had a nice welcome kit (what’s up with north point villas not giving us a welcome kit?!), were quick with the “emergencies” (didn’t really use that much) and maintenance, they mailed me a box of hershey kisses for my birthday (ok, bozzuto management mailed me…), and they were always friendly when i went into the leasing office. oh! and that time moravia was standing outside by the entrance of the complex, handing out breakfast something-or-rathers one morning… that was a nice touch
now to shower for the 2nd time in 5 hours… 3rd time in a little over 24 hours
